Boba, aka bubble, tea has been around for years, as a new article on the drink notes, but apparently The New York Times's food editor is just hearing of this "craze," using cringe-y words to describe the Taiwanese drink, like "alien ingredients," "complicated," and "exotic." The writer also described customers (people who actively chose to seek out bubble tea) as "baffled" and "uncertain." What's worse, the original headline was "The Blobs in Your Tea? They're Supposed to Be There." But, seemingly due to the backlash, the Times changed the headline to "Bubble Tea, Long a Niche Favorite, Goes Mainstream in the U.S."

People were quick to drag the newspaper on Twitter, and many pointed out how tone-deaf the paper was, saying, "Seriously? New York Times article on bubble tea like it's 1999," "What. So tone deaf @nytimes. Also, didn't bubble tea 'go mainstream' like a decade ago?" and "The NYT is, um, a little late to the bubble tea game. But if it's what it takes to get a boba shop on every corner…" One Twitter user called out the fact that a more diverse newsroom might have helped the Times avoid this embarrassment (which, side note, is true for more than just food-related stories), saying, "Your food blog needs more Asian friends."

To make things even more embarrassing, apparently the writer did not check the Times's archives, because in December 2016 the paper published an article with the headline, "Bubble Tea? So 2002. A Sampling of Food-Trend Predictions." Yikes.

At least it seems that someone at the Times is paying attention: The paper's Innovation and Workshops editor, Theodore Kim, responded on Twitter saying, "The story was a topic in the 9:30a editors meeting. There's also a Readers Center post coming. I think we fell short here."

Let's all agree to broaden our culinary horizons and stop claiming ownership over something that's been a part of culture for a while now.